Saturday, June 24, 2017

Marty's Reds (Updated)

Since I've done over a dozen of these teams and kind of settled on a format, I decided to update the original: an all-star Cincinnati Reds roster for the Marty Brennaman years, 1974-2017. This is, as best as I can determine, the best 25 players to have played for the Reds during the Hall-of-Famer's broadcast career.

Marty's career with the Reds is also roughly the "modern era" of baseball: the American League adopted the DH rule in 1973, Hank Aaron broke the homerun record and played his last season with the Braves in 1974, and the Reds and Red Sox thrilled a new generation of fans in the World Series in 1975. My parents graduated college and got married in 1974. It is roughly the beginning of "living memory" for a middle-aged fan today.

Anyways, this is the same roster as the original team I made in late April, with one exception. I decided to accept a reader's criticism and replace Dan Driessen with Sean Casey as the back-up first baseman. Because he had 600 more plate appearances, Driessen was worth half a win more than Casey above replacement. But The Mayor was worth about 3 wins above the major league average, whereas Driessen was roughly average over the course of his Reds career.

Also, Bronson Arroyo (God rest his career) was so bad in his comeback attempt (-1.6 WAR in 2017) that he has slipped into a 4th-place tie with Tom Browning in pitching WAR.

You can find my pained rationale for leaving Adam Dunn off the team, as well as full rankings for every position, in the original post.

The rules: highest career WAR while playing for the franchise from 1974 to 2017; roster mix of 5 starting pitchers, 5 relievers, and 7 bench players; minimum 200 games at a position for position players, 50 games started for starters, and 100 relief appearances for relievers.

In the stats listed below, WAR is the player's career total with the franchise, but other counting stats are at a per-season rate (162 games for position players, 34 starts for starting pitchers, and 68 relief appearances for relievers).

Two evenings per week each spring and summer the time had come to toss on that jersey and take the field, wanting to come back with a little trophy and boasting rights in the schoolyard the following day. Aaron Judge Jerseys